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ACWA Welcomes You
The ACWA Board of Directors, its officers and members would like to welcome you to the online home of the American Chuck Wagon Association, a 501.c.3 organization.
About Our Association
Get To Know Us
The American Chuck Wagon Association started out as a small group of Old West enthusiasts and has expanded to world wide association preserving the American past through competitions, demonstrations, charity and school events and other venues.
Our work is funded by sponsorships (see the power point presentation shown below-right); tax-free donations, honorariums and memorials
(We are a 501.c.3 organization);
cookbook, note card, t-shirt & cap sales in our General Store (go shopping), as well as membership dues.
For donations, honorariums and memorials, you may send a check to:
ACWA, 1723 East Tate Street, Brownfield, TX 79316 or call Nancy Sparks at (806)215-7851 with credit card information.
For Honorariums and Memorials, please include the name of the person remembered/honored, and address for a thank you card.
Youth & the ACWA
Our youth are our future and the ACWA supports activities directly involving them. We encourage producers to offer youth
competition at their cook offs whenever possible. Many of our cooking crews include young people at the cook offs.
The Association also periodically honors an outstanding young cook with the Rookie of the Year award.
In addition, the ACWA offers scholarships (read more) to selected individuals each
year. If interested, download an application here.
Scholarship recipients for the upcoming school year are Caleb Swanson from Canton, SD, and Chelsea Carter from
Prairie Hill, TX.
One of our recipients recently sent an update you may read here.
Another way to involve and educate our youth is with demonstrations. At one cook off, invitations were given to area schools to come on Friday.
There were busloads coming and going a good portion of the day. The students were wonderful and the three host wagons enjoyed sharing their camps
and telling a little about the history of the chuck wagon and the trail drives.
General Store
Want to take home some of that authentic, Old West taste and style? Now you can with ACWA Cookbooks, beautiful note cards and caps!
Chuck Wagon Catering
Many of our members offer catering services. Check out the link above to contact one of them about bringing some of the finest chuck wagon cooking to your next event.
ACWA News & Events
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June, 2017, President's Message
Maribeth and I went to the 7th annual Wagon for Warriors event in Lebanon Missouri on Memorial Day weekend. There were about 30 chuck wagons there to prepare food for the community and its veterans. A good time was had by all and the storms waited until everyone was leaving and then the fun began! Around 3:00 p.m. the tornado sirens went off and we understand a tornado did touch down south of Lebanon! However, no loss of life - just property damage from what we heard! What a way to end an event!
Dana Bowman, founder of Halo for Freedom Warrior Foundation was there to skydive into the event; however, due to the weather his helicopter was cancelled! A great guy whose motto is "It is not the disability...it is the ability" certainly lives by this every day! He is a great motivational speaker who works tirelessly to honor and support our wounded veterans! To read more about his organization and Dana, check out his website: danabowman.com.
Planning for the second ACWA Championship Cook Off has already started! It will be held April 5-7, 2018 at the Gillespie County Fair Grounds in Fredericksburg, Texas. Since ACWA is using a public facility reservations must be made well in advance. April 5-7, 2018 was the ONLY weekend available between January and July 2018 at the Gillespie County Fair Grounds so unfortunately the date was decided for us. The dates for 2019 have been reserved for April 11-13, 2019. This should give everyone plenty of time to make plans for these dates. If you would like to be a volunteer at the second ACWA Championship Cook Off, please let us know as we can never have too many volunteers!
Also, I have been in communications with Randy May and Greg Liles with Cowboys for Heroes regarding the Fort Sam Houston event dates for 2018 and 2019 to try and ensure there is not another conflict for ACWA members who want to support the event as it was in 2017.
After the verification of results of the Lazy E Arena, Wild, Wild West Fest, and Bob Drake Memorial chuck wagon cook offs, there are nine wagons from four states qualified for the second ACWA Championship Cook Off.
Here are the remaining ACWA sanctioned cook offs where you can still qualify for the championship:A Painted View Cook Off - Westcliffe CO - August 19
Washington County Fair Chuck Wagon Cook Off - Brenham, TX - September 15-16
Staked Plains Roundup - Hobbs, NM - September 15-16 (new sanctioned event)
Chandler Chuck Wagon Cook Off - Chandler, AZ - November 10-11
Finally, I would like to announce Sheryl Wailes is joining the ACWA staff on June 1st. Sheryl and Rex Wailes have been long time members of ACWA. As mentioned in last month's President's Message, Nancy Sparks had asked ACWA to find someone to take over the ACWA Quarterly Newsletter so the Board of Directors decided on a job description to include the newsletter but also all related ACWA communications to include the newsletter, all correspondence to ACWA members, communications about youth events and all communication related to the ACWA Championship Cook Off. Making Sheryl the center point for all communication in/out of ACWA will allow for consistency of messaging in emails, correspondence, media outlets, on the ACWA Facebook and the ACWA website. This will also keep ACWA in compliance with the cease and desist order! More information will be coming out from the BOD soon so be on the lookout on how to contact Sheryl, etc. Congratulations Sheryl!
Well I had better wrap things up for this month. Hope to see y'all at one of the cook offs throughout the year.
"PULLING TOGETHER AS A TEAM IS THE BEST WAY TO GET THINGS DONE." - ANONYMOUS
Until next time, Happy Trails!
Ronnie Sexton
2017 ACWA President
A Little History
In 1996 at a chuck wagon competition in Amarillo, Texas, a small group of Old West enthusiasts and wagon masters talked about an
association. The mission would be to preserve the heritage of the chuck wagon and its use in the short, but significant, era of the cattle
drives. In 1997, in Bryson, Texas, by-laws and articles of operation were adopted and the American Chuck Wagon Association was off and
running. Today there are members in 31 states, Canada, Germany and France.
In 2016, the original mission statement was revised and Sanctioning was approved. The revised mission statement reads as follows:
The mission statement of the American Chuck Wagon Association is to preserve the history of the
Chuck Wagon Era by providing educational opportunities and events to diverse audiences of all ages
while continuing to provide youth scholarships and support for wounded warriors.
The first ACWA Championship Cook Off in Fredericksburg, TX is in the history books.
The weather threatened, but cleared off and everyone had an amazing day. All the crews put out exceptional food that was enjoyed by all. Kudos to the Fairgrounds crew and facility.
Special thank you's to all the ACWA folks who put hours of blood, sweat and tears to make this happen.
And the overall winner is Crosstimber wagon from Mustang, OK, Jack Ramey and crew.
Find complete results for Fredericksburg here.
You can find the 2017 ACWA Championship results and 2018 qualified wagons here.
Click on the dots to see more detail.
Members participate in Cook off competitions, demonstrations, catering, charity events, school visits and many other activities to fulfill that original mission and even surpass the dreams of those organizers. Thank you for visiting our site and we hope you will visit one or more of our chuck wagon events.